1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shading device installed on a vehicle door or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
On the vehicle door or the like, a sunshade device is provided for blocking sunlight for the purpose of preventing dazzling and for protecting privacy. In the sunshade device for the vehicle door, in many cases, a shading screen is wound and housed inside a door body when not in use. When in use, the screen is drawn out upward along a window glass and the screen is held at a use position to cover the window glass by, for example, engaging a hook of a tip of the screen with an engagement portion of the door side.
A barrel member having a cylindrical shape is provided on the sunshade device to wind the shading screen in a housing position. The barrel member is biased in a winding direction by a spring member. The shading screen is fastened to the barrel member at one end and used by being drawn out to the use position against a biasing force of the spring member. If the engagement of the hook is released when the screen is located at the use position, the screen is automatically wound around the barrel member. If the spring member is housed in an inner space of the barrel member, a coil spring, which is formed by spirally winding a thin metal wire, is used as the spring member. In addition, a spiral spring, which is formed by winding a thin metal plate, is also used.
The shading screen is preliminarily biased so that a winding force is generated in the winding direction even at a nonuse position, which is a position wound around the barrel member. This is for the purpose of preventing a backlash of the sunshade device, for example. In order to bias the shading screen even when it is wound, the barrel member should be preliminarily wound around a bearing portion in the winding direction by a predetermined amount before the sunshade device is attached to the vehicle door. If the preliminary winding is performed when the sunshade device is attached, efficiency is not good. Therefore, it is proposed that a rotation of the barrel member is prohibited only during when the sunshade device is attached to the vehicle door and the rotation is allowed after the attachment.
In a window shade device for automobile disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4713940, a biased winding shaft (reference numeral 20) is held by inserting a thin holding pin (reference numeral 75) into a hole (reference numeral 51) of a cover (reference numeral 47), a hole (reference numeral 62) of a connecting shaft (reference numeral 40), and a blind hole (reference numeral 52) of the cover. However, it is difficult to visually confirm small holes to which the thin holding pin is inserted. Therefore, operation becomes difficult and man-hours are increased. In addition, after the sunshade device is attached to the vehicle door, the locked state is released by removing the holding pin. Therefore, the unnecessary holding pin should be disposed.
Furthermore, once the winding shaft is unrotatably fixed, inspection work, such as an operation check of opening/closing of the screen, cannot be performed before the sunshade device is assembled on the vehicle. In addition, when the sunshade device is required to be removed from the vehicle door at the time of providing a service such as the time of repairing the sunshade device, for example, the sunshade device cannot be removed in a state of maintaining the initial torque, i.e., a state of maintaining the state of being preliminarily wound. Therefore, maintainability is not good.
A sunshade device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-282767 includes a locking member (reference numeral 110) that is capable of engaging with a square columnar engagement portion (reference numeral 54) of an end cap (reference numeral 34) of a cylindrical body (reference numeral 24). On the locking member, a rectangular hole portion (reference numeral 114) that engages with the square columnar engagement portion, a circular hole portion (reference numeral 116) that is continued with the rectangular hole portion, and an abutting surface (reference numeral 118) that is located at the other end side of the rectangular hole portion are formed. Before the sunshade device is inserted into a fitting recessed portion (reference numeral 120) of the body, the abutting surface is projected below a bottom portion of a protective member (reference numeral 18B). Therefore, the rectangular hole portion engages with the square columnar engagement portion and the tubular body is unrotatably fixed. When the sunshade device is inserted into the fitting recessed portion, the abutting surface is pushed into the protective member and the square columnar engagement portion becomes rotatable by being guided by the circular hole portion. Since the abutting surface is pushed into the protective member, the locking member located at a lock release position cannot be pulled out to a lock position.
Therefore, once the tubular body is unrotatably fixed, inspection work of the sunshade device cannot be performed before the sunshade device is assembled on the vehicle also in the above structure. When providing a service, the sunshade device cannot be removed from the vehicle door in a state of maintaining the state that the tubular body is preliminarily wound.
Note that the above described problems also occur in the shading devices other than the sunshade device, for example, a tonneau cover device.